Do you remember, my living room ideas I put together before we moved back into our home? I pictured a pair or grey sofas, dhurrie grey rug, colorful lamps and patterned drapes. I also wanted lots of pillows, like and insane amount! I was slowly making headway on my plan, and then bought 'safe' curtains from Ikea, at the time I liked that they were neutral. Deep down, I knew as soon as I had the money saved up, I'd splurge on my 'it' fabric and sew some curtains! The same time I bought fabric for my kitchen roman shades, I also bought six yards of Courtyard Oyster fabric from Tonic Living during a spring fabric sale. I love the casual clean look of back tab drapes, they give the look of pleats without the formality. I completed this project a few months ago, but had to wait until after our Home Tour in the October HGTV Magazine was out to share on my blog. I'm in love with this fabric and love the pattern, it looks so pretty in our living room. I have a lot of grey in my living room and I love grey layered in varying shades.

I like my drapes to rest on the floors a bit, verses a big puddle or skimming above the floors.

These drapes are the second pair, I've sewn since moving back into our home and its good straightforward sewing project to complete, Mostly consisting of lots of straight lines and measuring, click here for a how to sew back tab drapes. I ended up moving the simple Ikea drapes into our bedroom, but they feel too 'safe' in there too! I just prefer colorful window treatments in my home [ chartreuse roman shades, turquoise roman shades, floral drapes ]

What you do think of the new pattern drapes in my living room?

Morning friends! I teamed up with a slew of creative bloggers swapping flea markets finds and then making them over. Here's the deets, shop [items from a flea market, thrift store etc] for a fun item for another blogger to makeover, spending between $10-15 bucks and then send them the item and they get creative making it over. My Swap buddy was Yvonne from Stone Gable, she sent me a pair 100 year old baseboard molding.

To be honest, I was a little stumped with what to do with them. My first thought was no to touch, and showcase them by making a shadow box. Then, thought about turning them into self brackets to hold a shelf. Still stumped, I called in for reinforcements and asked my friends what they thought. Some friends thought bookends, shelf brackets, kids blocks, then Shavonda suggested stacked wood block candle holders. Thanks to her, I had a light bulb moment!! I loved the candle holder idea it made perfect sense, I decided to cut them down into into wood blocks and turn them into tea light candle holders.

I bought some tea lights from Target and a 1 1/2 inch drill bit to drill into the wood. I decided to cut down the baseboard wood into 3x3 inch pieces using my miter saw.

I'm not a 'chippy wood' kind of girl, so I decided to using the backside of the baseboards to drill my tea light candle hole into. To drill the hole into the block of wood, I used a the clamp on my Miter Saw to keep the wood held in place and wore protective glasses. Remember its very important to wear protective eye wear,especially while drilling a circle into wood. Next, I marked an X on the wood and I used my Ryobi impact drill to make the hole in the wood and drilled into the wood. After I finished drilling the holes into the pieces of wood, I sanded the blocks and all the edges down to make everything more smooth. I also left some of the edges raw and untouched.

I planned on leaving the wood untouched, but the wood appears to be cedar and had sections of sap in it, that made it soft. For that reason, I decided to lightly stain the wood with walnut stain. I'm really happy with how my little tea light candle holders turned out, each one is unique and imperfect, love that none of them turned out identical. And now for the after, below.

The tea lights don't sit all the way into the wood, due to the depth of the wood blocks plus it also makes it easier to remove them.

I'm thrilled with how my Swap It Likes Its Hot project turned out, especially since I was originally stumped by what to do with the old baseboard molding. My swap partner was Lindsey from Makley School for Girls, make sure you pop over to her blog and see what I sent her plus, see what she did! I can't wait to head over there too!

Also stop by the blogs below to see what my fellow talented blog buddies where up to with there projects! This is going to be a fun day, so looking forward to popping over to all the other blogs. Plus its always fun to discover new to me blogs! Also quick and huge thank you to Charlotte of Ciburbanity & Jessica of Gourley Girl & Guy for thinking up this one Swap Party idea and asking me to join in the fun!!